


Ambassadorial Misconduct

by Sed



Series: Lionfang Week 2020 [2]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Flirting, First Meetings, Flirting, Horses, M/M, Mistaken Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:48:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25440409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sed/pseuds/Sed
Summary: Lionfang Week Day 2 - WarmthHe’d happened upon a stable hand, and now he would have to explain why he had disappeared from the groupandnearly frightened some poor whelp out of his boots.
Relationships: Varok Saurfang/Anduin Wrynn
Series: Lionfang Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1837471
Comments: 18
Kudos: 35
Collections: Lionfang Prompt Week





	Ambassadorial Misconduct

**Author's Note:**

> This one is a little late. I had a bit of trouble with it and fell behind, but now I'm catching up. Enjoy!

“The building on your right is the officer’s barracks,” Shaw explained, “and through here you will find the training yard, the command center, and the stable. It is unlikely you will have any reason to make use of these facilities during your stay, of course. Still, there is never any harm in knowing where you are.”

Varok Saurfang, along with half a dozen of his fellow Horde ambassadors, followed their guide through the towering arch and into a shaded, grassy area behind the stone-and-mortar facade of Old Town. It was their first stop on what was evidently the official-unofficial tour of Stormwind; a ridiculous, unnecessary waste of time, in Varok’s opinion. Unfortunately, it was one that their new warchief had insisted the ambassadors include in their itinerary. Varok wasn’t entirely certain Sylvanas didn’t simply want a more accurate map of the city’s interior, but then he supposed she had plenty of spies if that was the case. No, the far more likely explanation for sending seven very wary, very uncomfortable Horde ambassadors into the heart of the Alliance was because it simply amused her. Sylvanas was not one to suffer time-wasting and niceties, but she did seem to enjoy inflicting them on others.

Shaw kept moving, vaguely gesturing to a shadowy wooden building nestled amongst some tall trees. “Up ahead is a building that doesn’t concern you. Please ignore it.”

Stormwind was a magnificent city, of course, despite its austere stone walls and hard, cobblestone streets. The people were not quite friendly, but nor were they openly hostile. Most simply seemed curious, and somewhat wary themselves. The Legion’s return had once again made uneasy allies of the Horde and the Alliance, and like most, Varok had assumed that the truce would be temporary, as it always had been in the past. But in a strange turn of events, it seemed Sylvanas Windrunner had opted to place caution before pride, and reason before her own desires. She had struck peace with King Varian Wrynn, and pledged that it would last as long as her rule. That had surprised many, but none as much as Varok himself.

Yes, Stormwind was a beautiful city, and perhaps some day its people would warm to the Horde walking among them. But Varok feared it was _he_ who might never warm to the city. At least, not in its current climate. Literally.

He rubbed his arms and grimaced at the pool of shade ahead, inked across the ground by the lingering leaves of a tree cast in hues of fiery red, orange, and gold. Stormwind and the surrounding region were well into the throes of autumn, and despite the humid jungle that lay just beyond the distant mountains to the south, the city was gripped by an unshakable chill. Brisk winds and gray skies surrounded them, delivered courtesy of cold winds and even colder currents off the Alliance capital’s coast.

To the humans, however, it seemed the weather was still quite pleasant. Most of them wore no more than light, comfortable clothes and long sleeves. But for the visiting Horde, many of whom were from tropical climes, the cold made for a rather miserable time.

Varok muttered a curse. He looked around for some way to ease the blasted chill that seemed to have crawled into his very soul. His eyes fell upon a blanket draped across the fence that bordered the stables. It certainly wasn’t the most dignified way to chase off the cold, but then he had his doubts that any of Stormwind’s citizens would see the blanket before his sharp teeth, or his green skin.

He fell back behind the group, and when Shaw’s attention was elsewhere he slipped away, doubling back the way they had come. The blanket over the fence was torn in several places and dotted with bits of straw—hardly worth the effort of stealing it—and so he kept going, entering the stables as quietly as his plate boots would allow, in search of something better. They had to keep more on hand. Surely the Alliance, with its many farms and plentiful grazing, had wool to spare.

The horses around him nickered softly and shifted in their stalls as he passed. They were well-trained beasts, and Varok had no doubts that he had encountered more than one of these animals on the battlefield in the past. Horses might not be as dangerous as wolves, but they were nevertheless bred for war, and they knew the enemy’s scent. He wagered a human would forget his adversary far sooner than a stallion.

He rounded the corner of the barn and came upon a shorter row of stalls, all of them open in the front, without any sort of gate to keep the animals in. Nevertheless, several had horses tied up within. Varok assumed that these animals were waiting to be groomed.

In the third stall down, a large, white horse was tethered to the wall by its bridle, standing tall and proud with its golden-white mane cascading over its arched neck in several intricate braids. Varok peered into the stall hoping to spy a blanket, but found only the horse—and a young human, who he promptly startled.

“Oh!” the human exclaimed, peering up at him with wide blue eyes.

Varok cursed his luck; he’d happened upon a stable hand, and now he would have to explain why he had disappeared from the group _and_ nearly frightened some poor whelp out of his boots.

“I am only looking for something warm,” he said. His Common was excellent, but he worried that speaking the boy’s language might only frighten him further. Still, it was far less likely to terrify him than Orcish. “I intend no harm.”

“Well, that is a relief, although I wasn’t exactly worried about my safety,” the stable hand replied calmly. He resumed working at the horse’s white coat, dragging the thick-bristled brush along its back to clear away the day’s accumulation of dust. “You surprised me, that’s all. But now I find myself concerned for a different reason. Was this the Horde’s plan all along? Sneak into Stormwind under the guise of friendship, and then make off with our horse blankets?”

Varok stared blankly, his mouth hanging open in a silent protest. This human was… he was _teasing_ him. “You aren’t afraid of me?” he asked.

The stable hand shook his head and smiled. “No. Confused, but not afraid. You aren’t the first orc I have ever encountered. Although…” He paused his brushing and looked up, clearly pretending to think. “You are the tallest.”

Varok chuckled at that. “I will take that as a good thing,” he said. “I am not the first, but have you encountered many?”

The blue eyes took on a far off look for just a moment, and Varok briefly wondered if he had said something wrong. But then the human continued brushing, shaking his head as he smiled wanly. “No, not many.”

A strange silence happened then, with the sound of the brush and the shifting of hooves in straw the only backdrop to the strange tableau. Varok looked about for something to fill the empty space, and found a stool. With two steps back, he sat down, leaning against the wall opposite the stall.

“Are you planning to stay here long?” the stable hand asked.

“Would you prefer that I didn’t?” In truth, he wasn’t certain why he had chosen to take a seat, or to continue the conversation with this strange human he had found.

“Answering a question with a question is impolite,” the hand said, as though reciting the words from memory.

“Reprimanding guests is impolite as well.”

That earned him a much better smile; one filled with warmth, and what seemed to be genuine amusement. “So it is. No, I would not prefer that you leave. Reverence here is a capable companion, but makes for a poor conversation partner.” He gave the stallion’s withers a pat.

“Reverence?” Varok asked. He chuckled when the stallion tossed his head. “A magnificent beast.”

“He certainly is. My father gifted him to me when I came of age.”

“Were you an orc, you would have received a wolf, or perhaps a windrider.”

“Were I an orc,” the human said, “you and I might not be meeting for the first time today.”

There was something strange about the way he said it. _For the first time_. As though he expected they might meet again. Varok was certain that his chances of happening upon a single stable hand in the whole of Azeroth—and a human one, at that—were very low to begin with. But he kept the thought to himself, and only said, “And if you were an orc? What do you think you might do, living among the Horde as one of its people? There are no horses.”

The human gave him a strange look at that. “Well, let me think… I suppose I would enjoy communing with the elements.”

“A shaman?”

“Yes. It seems deeply spiritual, doesn’t it? But in a far more tangible way. More primal.”

Varok considered that. “You may be right.”

“You have no interest in such things?”

“No skill for it,” he admitted. “And no time.”

That made the human laugh. He finished with one side of the horse, and easily moved around to the other, ducking under the beast’s neck as though he had done it a thousand times before. Varok supposed he must have. “Are most ambassadors very busy?” he asked. “You all looked rather bored from where I was standing.”

He had been watching them? Varok tried to hide his surprise. It made him feel uncomfortable, knowing that their shuffling mix of awkward curiosity and boredom had been watched by such a keen eye. The common rabble he expected, of course, but this human was… Well, he was different. Special in some way.

“Mostly just cold,” he said honestly.

“Ah, hence the blanket.”

“That was the idea.”

The human had mostly disappeared behind the bulk of the stallion, but he bent down to peek at Varok from beneath the animal’s thick neck. “You aren’t worried that it might seem odd?”

“Odd how?”

“Wandering about the city, draped in a horse blanket?”

In truth, he hadn’t given it much thought. His only concern at the time had been comfort, and carrying out what seemed to him like a very good idea. “Would the sight of an orc in a blanket be any stranger than the sight of an orc without one?” he asked.

Silence. And then, “You are answering a question with a question again.”

Varok only smirked, biting his tongue to keep from parrying the not-so-subtle reproach. He had a feeling this human could keep up with an orc’s wit, but he did not wish to put it to the test, and risk what was quickly becoming a far more interesting discovery than any sight in Stormwind. “Do you spend much time in the city?” he asked instead.

He heard a sigh from the far side of the horse. “Sometimes it seems that way. I like to travel whenever I can, however.”

“Your duties keep you here.”

“They do. And…”

Varok waited.

“And my father would prefer that I stay where _he_ believes I am needed most.”

There seemed to be a wealth of unspoken words in that one short statement, but Varok was not foolish enough to go poking a hornet’s nest when he saw one. He offered mercy in the form of a change of subject, instead. “Would you ever like to see Orgrimmar?” he asked.

“I…” There was a quiet hesitation from the other side of the horse, and the sound of brushing stopped. Varok wondered if the stable hand was considering the question, or simply wondering how to avoid offending a guest of his king. To Varok’s surprise, he asked, “What is your name?”

“Varok Saurfang,” Varok answered. “High overlord of the Horde.” He paused for a beat, and then asked, “And you?”

A little sigh was the only answer he received. “I thought as much,” the human said quietly. “I imagine your fellow ambassadors will have noticed your absence by now. If you disappear for too long, Master Shaw will almost certainly dispatch a search team to find you. I doubt you intended to draw quite so much attention to yourself.”

That sounded like a dismissal if Varok had ever heard one. He wanted to ask if he had said something, offended the human in some way. Surely his name alone had not been enough to so drastically alter the course of their conversation? The urge to recover that ease between them was suddenly overwhelming, and he found himself asking, “Will you be here tomorrow?”

It took a moment, but the human said, “I can be. Were you intending to return to the stables?”

“If I have a reason to,” he replied. After a pause, he asked, “Do I?”

The one hand visible over the other side of the horse’s back tensed on the pristine white fur, and he heard the human draw in a breath to answer.

“High Overlord?” came a voice from the other side of the barn. Varok tensed, and then promptly shot up from the stool. It was Shaw, no doubt on the hunt for his missing charge. He appeared from around the corner, and the look of relief that came over him was enough to make Varok wince in sympathy. “There you are,” he sighed. “I was about to send out a search party. If you care to follow me, the other ambassadors are waiting.” The words were polite, but the tone suggested Shaw was not a man who had accepted his post as tour guide willingly, and would like nothing more than to drop all seven of them in the canal.

“Yes, of course,” Varok said.

Shaw nodded, and then turned on his heel and promptly marched back in the direction of the stable yard. No doubt he would double back if he discovered he wasn’t being followed.

Varok wanted to say something more, perhaps even prompt the strange and clever young human for an answer, but the words stalled somewhere between his mind and his mouth. Instead, he hesitated for a few seconds, watching the brush travel down the stallion’s back, and the bit of blond hair he could only just see past the animal’s shoulder.

“This was… lovely,” he said, before turning to leave.

It wasn’t until he was halfway across the stable yard that Varok realized he never had managed to find a blanket.

  
It seemed to take all day, but the walking tour of the city came to a close with the last light of the afternoon fading over the harbor. Varok stumbled into his chambers in the keep with an exhausted groan, pushing the wooden door shut and contemplating a face-first dive onto his bed. Only his certainty that he would destroy the flimsy piece of furniture in the process stopped him.

He sat down in a chair and began removing his boots while considering the large tub that awaited him in an adjoining room; a luxury that he would have had to share in Orgrimmar, but had all to himself in Stormwind. His bare feet hit the warm stone floor and he stopped.

Warm. The room was _warm_.

That was when he noticed the blazing fire in the hearth. Such a natural sight to find in a bedchamber, yet so unexpected here that he found himself mesmerized by the strangeness of it. Prior to that morning, there had not been so much as a single log in the grate, but now a healthy blaze crackled away merrily. An additional stack of firewood nearly half his height had been piled neatly beside the hearth. It was all placed with such care that it was obvious to Varok someone had intended for him to make use of it at his convenience.

When he tore his eyes away from the dancing orange flames, he realized the bed was far more plush than it had been before he left for the tour with the other ambassadors. He reached for the top blanket and pulled it aside to find a second layer of thick wool. Beneath that lay a quilt. Draped across the foot of the bed was a long, gray cloak, delicately embroidered in silver thread.

His first thought was that one of the other Horde must have complained. Rokhan, perhaps, or even Baine. The latter seemed unlikely, knowing what Varok did of the high chieftain, but it was far more probable than their Alliance hosts simply realizing their error and correcting it silently. Attention would have been drawn to the mistake, and an unnecessary, fawning apology would be made by servants whose lips had never formed the orders to carry out the original error. Varian Wrynn would have wanted his guests to witness his efforts to cater to their comfort. Whoever had done this was far more subtle, and far more considerate, than a king whose allies and fellow nobility expected him to make a show of being magnanimous.

It was a strange mystery. But then it seemed to be the day for those.

Varok shook the curiosity from his head with a smirk, and began the familiar but tedious task of unfastening his bracers and the leather straps beneath them. He removed his harness and tabard as well, and then stripped down to his bare skin, casting all the various bits of old leather and steel aside before making his way to the bath. When he entered the smaller room, he found that his needs had been anticipated yet again; hot water filled the large stone tub, and faint wisps of aromatic steam wafted from the surface.

He slipped into the water, letting the air wind its way out of his lungs in a long, contented rumble. His eyes slid shut, and his head fell back against the rim. The silver plaits of his long hair swayed gently in the water around him. It was bliss. Hot enough to warm him all the way to his aching bones. With a sigh, he gave silent thanks to his unknown benefactor. No doubt it was some poor, hapless drudge, whose only task was to see to the needs of the royal family.

Well, there was no sense in wasting the hospitality. After all, this luxury was but a brief respite; a reprieve, before the posturing and empty flattery resumed for the evening’s activities. Only this time, Varok thought with an ugly scoff, the setting would not be the chilly streets of Stormwind, but a formal banquet. A meal with the king and his heir, Prince Anduin Wrynn.

Varok frowned and slipped further under the water. He blew out a discontented breath as a long series of bubbles. The evening did not offer much, and promised to be as interminable as the damned guided tour. The whole ordeal was made no better for the fact that all Varok really wanted, all he truly longed to do, was don that warm cloak on the bed and make his way back to the stables, where he would find the surprisingly clever human who had captured his attention so effortlessly and completely, and finally learn his name.

Instead, he would fulfill his duty as a representative of the Horde, as he had given his word to do. He would break bread with his former enemies alongside his brothers and sisters who had sworn the same to their Warchief. He would listen to Varian Wrynn prattle on about peace and prosperity and new friends, and all the while he would think of the blue eyes and warm smile, and the quick wit that had so deftly charmed him. Blue eyes he was sadly certain he would never, ever see again.

**Author's Note:**

> There is a possibility I may write a sequel to this somewhere down the road when I have more time.


End file.
